energy: 25/50 of 1038

House prices could fall 7% near fracking rigs, according to the 'secret' Defra report on fracking in rural areas, only published in full after a legal battle, while leakage of waste water could damage human health and contaminate food.more...

Moving to 100% clean, renewable energy is a win-win option for South Australia, writes Mark Diesendorf. First of all it's highly doable over a 25-year transition period. It will also bring lower power prices, more employment, better health and a cleaner environment. What's not to like?more...

Britain's renewable energy surge will hit the buffers as funding dries up, writes David Toke - while cuts to the energy department's budget will wipe out its ability to guide the UK's low carbon energy transition.more...

The world economy and energy use both grew in 2014 - but carbon emissions did not, writes Alex Kirby. The reason? The worldwide surge in renewables, especially in China, has reduced demand for coal in power generation.more...

Sunday's SpaceX crash sends a powerful warning of the dangers of nuclear power on spacecraft, writes Karl Grossman. But will NASA listen? Despite the success of solar-powered missions, it's planning to use plutonium to power future missions and a new report asserts a continuing need for the technology - even as Russia ditches the idea.more...

Will Labour turn against nuclear power? As Chancellor, Ed Balls would have cancelled Hinkley C due to its massive cost, writes Ian Fairlie. But he never got the chance, and now the party remains muted even though the Government's nuclear enthusiasm is completely out of kilter with reality. To end nuclear's grip on Labour there's only one choice of leader: Jeremy Corbyn.more...

In a dramatic decision this morning, Lancashire county councillors voted 9:3 to reject Cuadrilla's planning application to frack at Preston New Road, defying the warnings of their own planning officers.more...

Following premature cutbacks to onshore wind farms the UK's energy security will increasingly depend on large scale offshore wind power, write Ian Broadbent & Peter Strachan. But while energy secretary Amber Rudd talked the sector up in her speech yesterday, she revealed feeble ambition, and said nothing to overcome investors' fears of being left out in the cold.more...

The Government's reckless pursuit of fracking and nuclear power, combined with its irrational hatred of renewables, onshore wind in particular, is taking the UK down a dangerous energy cul-de-sac, write Peter Strachan & Alex Russell. A redical rethink is due, or we'll be stuck with soaring fuel bills for years to come.more...

As Shell's Polar Pioneer drilling rig sails from Seattle into the north Pacific, Christine Ottery discovers that US federal regulators had serious concerns about the company's safety equipment designed to contain any oil spill.more...

Despite the PR spin the truth about nuclear power is clear, says Paul Flynn. Current projects are plagued with technical failures, cost escalations and long delays - while renewables power ahead. As tin-eared ministers refuse to get the message, it's time for civil servants to speak out direct to the public.more...

Batteries may have a big role in balancing future power grids, writes Sean Meyn, enabling more wind and solar generation. But until we go beyond 50% renewables, we don't need them. Instead we can adjust the demand of power hungry appliances to what's available every moment of the day.more...

energy: 25/50 of 1038

The Government is struggling to spin its policy to fast track fracking, writes Paul Mobbs. So as it cuts the public out of the regulatory process, exempts exploratory wells from controls, and forces the Environment Agency to issue permits with 1-2 weeks, its spin machine has resorted to outright lies and misinformation to conceal the scale of the attack on our environmental rights.more...

Japan and Germany have much in common: both are major industrial countries that have gone nuclear-free, writes Peter Matanle - Germany by choice, Japan by necessity. But while Germany is actively pursuing its renewable energy revolution, or Energiewende, Japan, possessed of the richest renewable energy resources in East Asia, is stuck in a fossil fuel pit.more...

China's success in driving down its fossil fuel burn will raise chances of a success at this year's Paris climate talks, writes Kieran Cooke - but first the world must appreciate the changes China is making, and how clean energy is catalysing a broader economic transformation.more...

As Lancashire planners come out in support of the UK's first fracking well, Jojo Mehta has something to celebrate: the resounding success of the 'What does FRACKING mean?' leaflets she crowd funded for in April. So far 80,000 have gone out to campaigners and volunteers all over the UK, and requests for more are piling up.more...

Faced with the task of decarbonising our electricity supply, it would be foolish to rule nuclear power out of the mix, writes Baroness Worthington, in her reply to Dr Becky Martin, whose open letter was published in The Ecologist.more...

Friends of the Earth opposes new nuclear power stations in the UK. And that's great, writes Jonathon Porritt, except for their complete failure to campaign about it - even though the government's nuclear obsession is a huge obstruction to the renewable energy future FoE says it wants. Please can we have some action now?more...

Thanks to the windy, sunny weather conditions on Saturday, the UK's output of renewable power reached an all-time record level of 43%, writes Chris Goodall. At the same time power from coal reached a low of just 7%, it what may be a record low contribution.more...

Today UK campaigners against burning biomass for power will deliver a 110,000 signature petition to DECC to protest at government subsidies for the practice. But in this 'Right of Reply' article Matthew Rivers, chairman of Drax Biomass, argues that biomass combustion is sustainable, benign, and helps to conserve forests worldwide.more...

The Apollo Programme proposed this week to make renewable energy cheaper than coal through technological advances is welcome, writes James Dyke. But the real problems are political, not technological. Unless we back the Apollo vision by challenging the power of fossil fuel companies, it can never succeed.more...

An ambitious plan to make a wholly renewable energy system cheaper than fossil fuels within a decade has been launched today and is set to receive its first hearing at the G7 Summit in Germany next week.more...

The fossil fuel industry and its political backers have been left reeling by an unprecedented series of direct action strikes against targets across the country to protest at continuing investment in and official support for fossil fuels, inaction over fuel poverty and the systematic neglect of renewable energy despite the global climate emergency. more...

Emboldened by the Tory election victory and the appointment of Amber Rudd as energy Secretary, writes Ben Lucas, planning applications to frack have been coming in thick and fast - even in densely populated London boroughs.more...

A host of Pacific nations are turning to renewable technologies to satisfy 100% of their energy, writes Maxine Newlands. Samoa is aiming to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2017, while Tokelau has already reached 94% including 100% of its electricity.more...